January 14, 2010
God, who is the Protector and the Creator of all, accompanies you on your individual and collective journeys.
Each of you is a kind of microcosm of human life. You are not typical of every kind of human existence, but you are representative of what it means to experience life in human form. Each of you has a history. Each of you experiences life through the contextual lens of your lives to this point. What you have experienced greatly impacts what you see. What you feel is the result of what you have experienced. You are who you are because of what you have been through. Who you are to become is in great measure the result of your own current perspective. You experience according to your perspective.
You learn to be loving because you learned through being loved. You learn to spread negative energy because you have learned something of the power of the negative. You learn what it means to be loving, positive, supportive through your life’s experiences. No one learns only what is negative. No one learns only what is positive, for all life consists of a kind of balancing act that tries to give meaning to what you have learned and what you have experienced.
If the purpose of human life were merely to learn on your own terms, then you could develop beautifully. You could radiate all that is godly through your experience in isolation. But it is God’s design that no one learns in isolation. No one grows in total isolation. You do need one another. You need one another because of the support, the love, the compassion, the companionship that you experience from another, but also for the potential of transforming that experience into your own intention.
Human life is community life. You are provided an opportunity for community, because what can be gained in community cannot be gained elsewhere. But to balance this community you must also devote efforts toward reflection, reflection on your own life’s meaning, reflection on what is important to you as individuals, reflection on what are your values, reflection on how you as individuals can interact with life around you. What is best for you individually is fully knowable only by you. You cannot determine even through loving means what is truly most important to another.
Your growth therefore, spiritually, is achieved through the balancing of self and community. It is the balance between the I and the we. It is not a balancing between you and me, for you implies the absence of me, but we includes the presence of I. Therefore it is important in all aspects of human life, acknowledging the differences in pathways, to still focus on I and we. There is no true separation. For every individual who sees himself or herself as I, there is a collection of souls which sees that individual as part of we. If you are seen as part of the we group, you cannot possibly ever be alone. Your own consciousness, your own concerns, can vary appropriately to have an I focus as needed, for this does not separate the I from others. Such division as exists is only one half the relationship. It is only the I. You cannot clap with one hand. It takes both. You cannot live with only the I, for I requires a we.
The question arises about collective prayer and personal prayer. There is in reality no structural difference, but there is a spiritual comparison that can be made. When you pray alone, the beneficiary of that prayer is not only what it is that you pray for—an individual, cause, a condition—the beneficiary is also the self, the individual who offers the prayer. Praying collectively, the beneficiary, in addition to what is prayed for, is actually the collective of those in prayer.
There is strength when several are united in prayer. It doesn’t mean that God receives the prayers more intensely, but it does mean that such collective prayer benefits all who are praying, in addition to that for which you pray. When there is benefit to all who pray, there is more positive God-centered energy that is spread throughout God’s creation. If many are gathered in prayer, then many are creating the energy that blesses all that has been created. The impact as a result is stronger, not because God responds more strongly, but because of the energy resulting from your collective prayer.
As we have indicated before, prayer does not activate God’s presence. It merely sensitizes those who pray and those for whom prayer is offered. This increased sensitivity is an opening of the door of the spirit which allows the Light to enter with great intensity and brilliance. Should you pray alone or with others? You should do both, for both have a place in the world of spirit. Praying collectively is an enormously powerful experience. It carries with it great energy. It is energy that opens many to God’s Light.
There are those who gather to pray in opposition to other prayerful gatherings. But you are, in the end, not competing for who has the best prayer, who wins the most help, who is right, who is wrong. That is not the result of the competing prayers. The true result is that even if the subject of the prayers is in conflict with another, the benefit that accrues is brought to all who pray, for if you pray, you are by the very act acknowledging the existence of an entity that is the receptor of such prayer. Merely acknowledging and accepting the reality of a God, a Spirit Center, is enough to bring positive energy throughout all of creation. The words to prayer are in themselves unimportant, but those words carry with them an identity which has special meaning and significance to others, and it is that added significance, that deeply felt connection, that is really the positive energy that results in positive impact.
When you pray for those who have joined us, those prayers are especially comforting because those spirits easily identify with human life that surrounded their paths. Praying individually for a spirit that has made the transition eases that spirit’s adjustment to a purely spiritual existence. What do you pray for on behalf of another who has joined us? You pray for comfort. That comfort impacts the spirit on countless levels, and it is that comfort that we were focusing on when last you met. You may pray for comfort knowing its meaning. You may pray for a peaceful transition, but isn’t that comfort? You may pray that a soul is welcomed by other souls that were known in human life, but that is comfort. You may pray for a relief of suffering, but that is comfort. You may pray that a spirit be surrounded by an intense, warm and loving Light, but that is comfort.
Is it important that several pray together for souls who have just joined us? It is not essential, but it is strength-giving, strength-giving because of the spiritual interaction of those who gather to pray, and it is that positive energy that is then directed toward the soul for whom you turn your prayers. We keep emphasizing the importance of prayer because the benefits flow in virtually all directions—above, below, in front, behind, from side to side. Since in a spiritual sense, there is no defined space, that benefit of prayer, therefore, has no limitation. More joined in prayer means more intensity to what is beneficial. Yes, corporate prayer for those newly arrived spirits is a great help.
It is our loving duty, our responsibilities, to provide you with comfort, not just at times of transition, but at all times during your human life. That help can be in many forms: decision-making, the development of relationships, the protection of spirit entities.
There are always spirits who have difficulty making the transition. There is nothing wrong with those spirits. It is merely that they were freed from their earthly experience before they had completed the growth that could only be accomplished through such life. We protect your spirit centers. We give strength to your spirit centers. If you know of those who live in turmoil because of the presence of a spiritual entity, spiritual energy, that is not fully developed, then guides are capable of lifting those burdens from the human experience. Such lifting is accomplished in numerous ways. Prayer is always an option, and it is always effective. Prayer that is solitary, prayer that is corporate—both can assist. There are indeed those with gifts to free spirits, gifts that comfort troubled spirits, freeing them to develop as they are meant to develop. Whether through the assistance of individuals or through prayer, each of you, individually and together, have the ability to help release and thereby refresh. You can renew, you can strengthen, you can empower.
The life of spirit exists at many levels concurrently. Understanding these levels is enormously complex, but it is above all important for each of you to acknowledge what can be done in prayer, for you can always pray. You can always strengthen through prayer. It is not a skill which must be learned. It is the natural expression of your soul. Allow your souls to reach out, to capture God’s Light, and to reflect that Light in all directions.
Amen.